I taught Newell's "Being a White Problem and Feeling It" in class today and it was brutal. Like, absolutely soul draining. Especially because of the ways that I could hear myself coddling the students feelings when explaining systemic racism.

Especially given questions like "why are whites so hated on while other races stress how much their lives matter when in reality all lives matter." Which... What the hell do you do with this kind of question? How do you begin to talk through something like that?

(as an aside, I explained that Black Lives Matter is pointing out the ways that Black lives have never historically mattered, and to insist that Black lives matter is not to insist that other lives don't matter, but to insist on the value of Black lives. Which...)

I've joked in grad school that I needed to teach a course on Philosophical Approaches to Whiteness, and I even built a syllabus to actually do so. After this class and some of the questions I was asked, I don't think I can make that joke anymore.